26 MYSTIC ISLES 



framed against the heavens. The moon was in its 

 mouth; the moon shaped hke an eye, a briUiant, glow- 

 ing, wondrous orb, more intensely golden for its con- 

 trast with the ominous blackness of the serpentine cloud. 

 I felt that I had found the origin of the Oriental fable. 

 Some minutes the illusion held, and then the cloud low- 

 ered, and the moon, alone against a pale-blue back- 

 ground, the horizon a mass of scudding draperies of 

 pearly hue, lit the ocean between the ship and the edge 

 of the world in a tremulous and mellow gilded path. 



There was dancing on the boat-deck, the Lydian 

 measures of the Hawaiian love-songs, those passionate 

 melodies in which Polynesian pearls have been strung 

 on European filaments, filling the balmy air with quiv- 

 ering notes of desire, and causing dancers to hold closer 

 their partners. The Occident seemed very far away; 

 even older i:)eople felt the charm of clime that had come 

 upon them, and laughter rang as stories ran about the 

 group in the reclining-chairs. 



The captain, tliough grim from a gripping religion 

 that had squeezed all joy from his scripture-haunted 

 soul, added an anecdote to the entertainment. 



"Passing from Fiji to Samoa," he said, "I had to 

 leave the mail at Niuafou, in the Tongan Islands. It is 

 a tiny isle, three miles long by as wide, an old crater in 

 which, is a lagoon, hot springs, and every sign of the 

 devastation of many eruptions. The mail for Niuafou 

 was often only a single letter and a few newspapers. 

 We sealed them in a tin can, and when we met the post- 

 master at sea, we threw it over. He would be three 

 miles out, swimming, with a small log under arm for 

 support, and often he might be in company with thirty 



